Thursday, May 31, 2012

ADP National Employment Report: May 2012

Today, private staffing and business services firm ADP released the latest installment of their National Employment Report indicating that the situation for private employment in the U.S. improved in May as private employers added 133,000 jobs in the month bringing the total employment level 1.77% above the level seen in May 2011.

Perusing the rest of the data in the ADP dataset you can see the the economy is currently showing the most growth for small to mid-sized service providing jobs with goods-producing jobs remaining near trough levels.

Look for Friday’s BLS Employment Situation Report to likely show somewhat similar trends.

Extended Unemployment: Initial, Continued and Extended Unemployment Claims May 31 2012

Today’s jobless claims report showed a notable increase to initial unemployment claims and a decline to continued unemployment claims while seasonally adjusted initial claims approached the closely watched 400K level.

Seasonally adjusted “initial” declined to 383,000 claims from last week’s revised 373,000 claims while seasonally adjusted “continued” claims declined by 36,000 resulting in an “insured” unemployment rate of 2.6%.

Since the middle of 2008 though, two federal government sponsored “extended” unemployment benefit programs (the “extended benefits” and “EUC 2008” from recent legislation) have been picking up claimants that have fallen off of the traditional unemployment benefits rolls.

Currently there are some 2.93 million people receiving federal “extended” unemployment benefits.

Taken together with the latest 3.12 million people that are currently counted as receiving traditional continued unemployment benefits, there are 6.05 million people on state and federal unemployment rolls.


Wednesday, May 30, 2012

Reading Rates: MBA Application Survey – May 30 2012

The Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA) publishes the results of a weekly applications survey that covers roughly 50 percent of all residential mortgage originations and tracks the average interest rate for 30 year and 15 year fixed rate mortgages as well as the volume of both purchase and refinance applications.

The purchase application index has been highlighted as a particularly important data series as it very broadly captures the demand side of residential real estate for both new and existing home purchases.

The latest data is showing that the average rate for a 30 year fixed rate mortgage (from FHA and conforming GSE data) declined 2 basis points to 3.81% since last week, the lowest value on on record for this MBA series, while the purchase application volume declined 0.6% and the refinance application declined 1.5% over the same period.

The following chart shows the average interest rate for 30 year and 15 year fixed rate mortgages since 2006 as well as the purchase, refinance and composite loan volumes (click for larger dynamic full-screen version).




Tuesday, May 29, 2012

S&P/Case-Shiller: March 2012

Note... be sure to bookmark the overall S&P/Case-Shiller Dashboard or the Scary Housing Dashboard of the weakest markets for a real-time view of all the markets tracked by S&P.

The latest release of the S&P/Case-Shiller (CSI) home price indices for March reported that the non-seasonally adjusted Composite-10 price index declined 0.09% since February while the Composite-20 index declined 0.03% over the same period resulting in the lowest level seen to on the Composite-10 since early 2003 and the largest peak decline seen since the nearly six year old housing bust began in 2006.

The latest CSI data clearly indicates that the price trends are experiencing a declining trend through the typically less active winter season and as I recently pointed out, the more timely and less distorted Radar Logic RPX data is continuing to capture notable rising prices driven primarily by seasonality.

The 10-city composite index declined 2.85% as compared to March 2011 while the 20-city composite declined 2.57% over the same period.

Both of the broad composite indices show significant peak declines slumping -35.21% for the 10-city national index and -35.07% for the 20-city national index on a peak comparison basis.

To better visualize today’s results use Blytic.com to view the full release.

Sunday, May 27, 2012

E-Card Obsession ... Top 20!


Well hello there :)

If you are on Pinterest on a daily basis like moi...
 then I am sure you are just as obsessed with these hysterical e-card pics as I am.

They literally crack me up, I find myself laughing out loud at all most all of them!

So in an effort to make everyone laugh on this holiday weekend ... I have compiled my


TOP 20

most relatable, absolutely crack your shit up, e-cards!

Drum roll please .... In no particular order ...  Enjoy :) Ha.




Hahaha what did we ever do before Pinterest?? 


I literally hate Crocs... always have, always will ... I tolerate them on the kids ONLY at the beach ha!


One word ... Hangry ha. I am totally guilty of this. 


Haha this is 100% COMPLETELY me ... I seriously would do this if I didn't think I would lose business lol I hate listening to voicemails! 
Hahahaha ... Patience is not something I am good with .. guilty again. 



LOL


So True!


If this were true, I would be so super skinny ha! 


Ha that is just funny period. 

Hahahaha I have several of those days. 


Love this ... LOL


Hahaha

Very true in the real estate business hahaha ;)



To all my 50 Shades friends haha ;) those books make you question if you are sane after you finish when you are slightly depressed you aren't reading anymore ha 



Hahahaah that one is seriously probably one of my top 3 favorites ever! 



Sad, but true ha  


Em this is for you :) It is true though, Lilly clothes make me happy ha :) 

And I have saved the best for last ... 
I think we can ALL relate to this one ... 


Hahahaha
anyone who knows me well, knows I can totally concur with this ha. 

Happy Memorial Day weekend :)
PS. I promise to try to get back into the blogging swing .. I have been MIA and it's making me sad!
post signature

Thursday, May 24, 2012

Extended Unemployment: Initial, Continued and Extended Unemployment Claims May 24 2012

Today’s jobless claims report showed a notable declined to both initial and continued unemployment claims while seasonally adjusted initial claims continued to trend well below the closely watched 400K level.

Seasonally adjusted “initial” declined to 370,000 claims from last week’s revised 372,000 claims while seasonally adjusted “continued” claims declined by 29,000 resulting in an “insured” unemployment rate of 2.6%.

Since the middle of 2008 though, two federal government sponsored “extended” unemployment benefit programs (the “extended benefits” and “EUC 2008” from recent legislation) have been picking up claimants that have fallen off of the traditional unemployment benefits rolls.

Currently there are some 2.93 million people receiving federal “extended” unemployment benefits.

Taken together with the latest 3.15 million people that are currently counted as receiving traditional continued unemployment benefits, there are 6.08 million people on state and federal unemployment rolls.


Wednesday, May 23, 2012

Skaneateles Real Estate - The Weekly Update

I started this blog earlier and got sidetracked into a different sort of blog.  Back to the facts.  And this year the facts are fun.  When I began writing the economy began its downturn.  No, I do not have an ego that suggests I had anything to do with it, but chronicling the fall was not pleasant.  I like this upswing - a lot.

Currently there are 106 active listings in the Skaneateles area of the multiple listing system.  Of these, 31 are in the Village and 26 are considered waterfront.  Frankly I don't go through to see which ones are streams (Skaneateles Creek runs along many boundaries) and which ones have a pond and claim waterfront.  Agents  have no real way to denote lake rights vs. right on the water, so they become "waterfront."  (We need another category!)  I think it's close enough.

Nine properties came on the market in the past week.  Two adorable houses in the village well under $300,000 and another in the town not too far out but under $200,000, equally adorable, came on.  A fourth listing was for a house with lake rights, positioned under $400,000.  The remainder were re-lists, with freshening or some reduction in price.

Three houses are newly contingent, bringing the total number of all homes waiting to close to 33, a fairly high number.  Of the three, two were on the market less than two weeks when they received their offers.   This is great news for everyone.

And of course, which is so lovely to say, we have another property that closed this week.  It was located in the town and sold for about 12% off its original list price.

What will next week bring?  Stay tuned! And have a peaceful and happy Memorial Day!


FHFA Monthly Home Prices: March 2012

Today, the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) released the latest results of their monthly house price index (HPI) showing that in March, nationally, home prices increased 1.78% since February rising 2.69% above the level seen in March 2011.

The FHFA monthly HPI are formulated from home purchase information collected from mortgages that have been sold to or guaranteed by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

A Reminder

Reading the Post-Standard (www.syracuse.com) today at breakfast Sean Kirst's article caught me unawares.  I am usually prepared for him, but today I wasn't.  I thought I was reading an article more related to real estate; a man was selling the house his father had built years ago.  But when he got to the part about how his father had kept a box of balls the dog had retrieved on a summer's evening of play when the man was a boy, well, I lost it.  Am again, too, as I write.  A house is a home, not just a commodity.

Then I realized why it hit me so hard.  Bob's father also built the house his family grew up in - all seven kids in what today would be considered a small cape on the west side of Syracuse when there were still meadows down the road.  The boys had one bedroom and the girls had another.  Bob's mother is still there and hauling things out that she had saved, just like in Sean's article.  Ten years ago Bob's father passed away, just as we were getting married.  He attended our shower, a shower I had protested against but am now so glad I gave into having, in early May.  Then the doctor's appointments started.  Alex graduated from Mary Washington College the next weekend and we checked train schedules in case Bob had to get back quickly.  Mr. C passed away on Tuesday, the calling hours were Thursday, funeral Friday and we were married on Saturday.  He was going to walk me down the aisle, but instead we had a ton more guests than originally planned.

So Sean's article hit me.  I look at the photos now - my aunts and one of Bob's are gone, as is my mother.  Alex's best friend passed away in the interim too - we didn't know he was sick until later that summer.  Cheri and Wayne McDonald catered our wedding reception, adjusting to an extra fifty guests without a blink.  Wayne is gone, too.  Our home holds those memories, just as Sean described.

This week we welcomed a baby into the world, my brother- and sister-in-law's first grandbaby, Jason.  Stop in to Hobby House and tell them congratulations if you get a chance.  The baby's father was on his way home from Afghanistan for the birth and didn't make it in time - Jason had other plans apparently.  But he's there now, and a new generation has begun.


So as you buy houses and sell houses, prices are of course important as are the conditions of the house and all the legal and financial work that goes into the process - but they are also homes.  Homes in which people have lived or will live.  Where memories are made and forgotten.  Thank you, Sean, for reminding me.

Reading Rates: MBA Application Survey – May 23 2012

The Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA) publishes the results of a weekly applications survey that covers roughly 50 percent of all residential mortgage originations and tracks the average interest rate for 30 year and 15 year fixed rate mortgages as well as the volume of both purchase and refinance applications.

The purchase application index has been highlighted as a particularly important data series as it very broadly captures the demand side of residential real estate for both new and existing home purchases.

The latest data is showing that the average rate for a 30 year fixed rate mortgage (from FHA and conforming GSE data) declined 2 basis points to 3.83% since last week, the lowest value on on record for this MBA series, while the purchase application volume declined 3.0% and the refinance application increased 5.6% over the same period.

The following chart shows the average interest rate for 30 year and 15 year fixed rate mortgages since 2006 as well as the purchase, refinance and composite loan volumes (click for larger dynamic full-screen version).




Tuesday, May 22, 2012

Existing Home Sales Report: April 2012

Today, the National Association of Realtors (NAR) released their Existing Home Sales Report for April  showing an increase in sales with total home sales climbing 3.4% since March rising 10% above the level seen in April 2011.

Single family home sales also improved rising 3.0% from March and 9.9% above the level seen in April 2011 while the median selling price increased 10.4% above the level seen in April 2011.

Inventory of single family homes increased 10.9% from March dropping 18.8% below the level seen in
April 2011 which, along with the sales pace, resulted in a monthly supply of 6.6 months.

The following charts (click for full-screen dynamic version) shows national existing single family home sales, median home prices, inventory and months of supply since 2005.



Monday, May 21, 2012

The Chicago Fed National Activity Index: April 2012

Today’s release of the Chicago Federal Reserve National Activity Index (CFNAI) showed improvement for the national economy with the index increasing from last month to stand at 0.11 while the three month moving average also declined to -0.06.

The CFNAI is a weighted average of 85 indicators of national economic activity collected into four overall categories of “production and income”, “employment, unemployment and income”, “personal consumption and housing” and “sales, orders and inventories”.

The Chicago Fed regards a value of zero for the total index as indicating that the national economy is expanding at its historical trend rate while a negative value indicates below average growth.

A value at or below -0.70 for the three month moving average of the national activity index (CFNAI-MA3) indicates that the national economy has either just entered or continues in recession.

Friday, May 18, 2012

Fannie Mae Delinquencies: March 2012

The latest release of the Fannie Mae Monthly Summary indicated that total serious single family delinquency declined slightly in March while remaining at distressed levels.

In March, 2.93% of non-credit enhanced loans went seriously delinquent while the level was 8.35% of credit enhanced loans resulting in an overall total single family delinquency of 3.67%.

The following charts (click for larger ultra-dynamic and surf-able chart) show what Fannie Mae terms the count of “Seriously Delinquent” loans as a percentage of all loans on their books.

It’s important to understand that Fannie Mae does NOT segregate foreclosures from delinquent loans when reporting these numbers.